Abstract [en]

Systembolagets external communication is something a lot of people in Sweden have to deal with. The mission is unique because of their monopoly of the retail sales of alcoholic beverages in Sweden and a mission to sell alcohol with responsibility and without profit. The purpose of this essay is to elucidate how they previously worked in Operation Vin 1960, and how they work 2018 with the movie “Tack för din omtanke”, to shed light about their external communication. This case study is a content analysis with focus on rhetoric and strategical communication with emphasis on health and culture.

Systembolaget and the government have a long history of campaigns to reduce alcohol consumption. Raised taxes and low accessibility have been part to the alcohol politics by the government. Systembolaget have besides this, been focused on information campaigns to keep the Swedish alcohol consumption low. They have lead information campaigns from the start of the company to inform the Swedish population of the risks of alcohol. Through an analysis of the first and the last infomercials did it reveal that culture was an important part of the alcohol culture in Sweden and how Systembolaget has used communication in order to shed light on this matter. Systembolaget use a commercial kind of element to strengthen their brand and by that, the infomercials could be read as commercials.

The analysis revealed that the problem Systembolaget had, was different 2018 compared to 1960. The mission had not changed, however. Branding communication and the maintaining of a high reputation was central, compared to Operation vin, which dealt with the problem of high consumption of hard liquor within the population.